Frequently Asked Questions: #9

This girl I have is hardtack and dried lime and reminds me, every groggy morning,what a miracle it must have been when outfitters learned to stock ship holdswith that one long lasting fruit. How the sailors’ tongues, landing on its bitter brilliance, must have cursedthe curse of joy, as I did that morning the burst of water brought my sweet girl into our lives.

But, already, she hates me sometimes. Like I have sometimes hated my mother and shemust have sometimes hated her own.

After weeks at sea, the limes would desiccate and the meal fill with worms. They would have eatenanyway, the sailors, but taken no pleasure from anything. Or taken no pleasure from anything butthe fact of their sustained lives. Which is to say it is all I can do, most days, not to swallowher up and curse her maker, I swear. Like I have not sworn since the morning she was born.

About This Poem

“This poem is part of a series in which I try to honestly address some of the complicated questions I’m confronted with as a mother. It’s also not the only poem in which I contemplate the complexities of the seafaring life. More proof that our oceans harbor all kinds of treasure, perhaps.”—Camille T. Dungy

we let our hair down. It wasn't so much that we
worried about what people thought or about keeping it real
but that we knew this was our moment. We knew we'd blow our cool
sooner or later. Probably sooner. Probably even before we
got too far out of Westmont High and had kids of our own who left
home wearing clothes we didn't think belonged in school.
Like Mrs. C. whose nearly unrecognizably pretty senior photo we
passed every day on the way to Gym, we'd get old. Or like Mr. Lurk
who told us all the time how it's never too late
to throw a Hail Mary like he did his junior year and how we
could win everything for the team and hear the band strike
up a tune so the cheer squad could sing our name, too. Straight
out of a Hallmark movie, Mr. Lurk's hero turned teacher story. We
had heard it a million times. Sometimes he'd ask us to sing
with him, T-O-N-Y-L-U-R-K Tony Tony Lurk Lurk Lurk. Sin
ironia, con sentimiento, por favor, and then we
would get back to our Spanish lessons, opening our thin
textbooks, until the bell rang and we went on to the cotton gin
in History. Really, this had nothing to do with being cool. We
only wanted to have a moment to ourselves, a moment before Jazz
Band and after Gym when we could look in the mirror and like it. June
and Tiffany and Janet all told me I looked pretty. We
took turns saying nice things, though we might just as likely say, Dieand go to hell. Beauty or hell. No difference. The bell would ring soon.With thanks to "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks